32 Thoughts: The Podcast

00:00 Can we come back to this? I want to think about this. 00:03 Come back to it? 00:05 Well, just talk about something else, and then I won't pay attention while I'm thinking about it. 00:13 How is that different from any other time I speak on this show? This is true, actually. 00:18 Yeah. 00:20 Welcome to 32 Thoughts, the podcast. I'm Elliott and Kyle back with you again on this Thursday edition. Elliott, and then there were none. No more undefeated teams remain in the NHL just over a weekend. Colorado loses Wednesday night. The Ducks lose Wednesday night. We'll get to that one and the Oilers in a little bit. But what a performance by Winnipeg and from Stuart Skinner. A game where they lose Josh Morrissey after the first period. 00:51 They have been asked to defend against a high-octane Colorado offense. Skinner puts on a performance for the ages and a last minute goal from Kyle Connor, who has looked dynamite to start. I think when you consider the expectations, the narratives around teams going into the year of the seven Canadian clubs, Winnipeg start has been most impressive for me. What say you? 01:18 I don't disagree with you on that, but it's good to see that every team in the NHL is blemished in some way, Kyle, just like you and I. 01:33 Yes, we're dragging them all down. 01:36 Welcome to the club. 01:37 I agree with you on Winnipeg. 01:40 I don't know if anybody would have expected after four games, them at 3-0-1 would be number one in the Central Division, 875 points percentage. And just like the two Canadian teams in the West that won on Wednesday night, the Jets and the Oilers, Similar storyline. We'll get to the Oilers in a minute. But there were points in their games where they could have been blown out of the building. 02:12 And their goaltenders, who people were a little unsure of, made the saves that saved the night for them. Skinner, very, very good in that game. And the Jets... 02:26 You know, if you look at it, they lost Morrissey, too. He came out for only, what, one shift in the second period, and then they said postgame, we'll see tomorrow as the injuries pile up at the start of the season. 02:40 So that's a big one for them. That's potentially significant. But the thing I like the most about the Jets is – You know, Scheifele didn't have a point until this game. They still won two out of three and got a point in overtime in the other one. He had a great game in this one, an incredible play with Kyle Conner to score the winner late in the third period. Morrissey gets hurt in this one, and they still find a way to win. Obviously, the hellebuck thing – still over the entire franchise, but you can kind of punt it into the background now when you get off to this good start. 03:20 I don't know if there's a team. There's a lot of teams that needed to do well this year. I don't know if there's a team that needed it more than the Jets, and so far they get it. They look like they've got perseverance, guts, a will. They have a will to them. They can hold the Green Lantern ring. They have willpower. 03:42 Don't you find, I mean, that's a great, it is a great indicator of what you've got in a dressing room or organizationally in terms of the psychological makeup is when you're dealt a hand, like maybe what Winnipeg's going through, or if you're in a situation where you're ravished with injuries or there's some sort of dark cloud hanging over you, how do you handle it? I don't know, like you think back to the Bergeron-Chara era of the Bruins when they would have multiple injuries pile up and they just kept winning. Like nothing bothered them. 04:13 They found a way to get results and a great sign for Winnipeg with what's been going on with them and to come out the way that they have. You mentioned that the way Shifley and Connor connected on the winning goal. You go back and watch. So Sam Malinsky is the defenseman checking or watching Connor off that rush. And you look at his body language, he's a guy that's going, there is no way where Shifley has the puck over there that it is a threat to get to Connor over here. 04:44 And suddenly in the blink of an eye, it's on and off his stick through his legs and in the back of the net. It was unbelievable. Even the guys on the ice are going... There's no way that pass can be made here. And Shifley found a way to make it work and thread the needle. 04:58 All we needed was a cut to Jared Bednar to see the look on his face that said, how did that pass get from one end of the ice to the other? 05:10 That was impressive. 05:11 Whether Bednar has short hair or long scraggly Gene Principe hair, he wasn't going to be happy that that pass got from one end of the ice to the other. And just like basically Connor in one motion, like just a swoop shooting it. Everything about that play was such elite, elite skill. You know, I look at the Jets and it's... You don't, as a player... 05:40 See, I think you have to find any motivation to get you through a season. It's 84 games. I have to get used to saying that. I was about to say it's 82 games. It's 84 games. You're not going to be at your best all the time. It's not humanly possible. So I think you have moments where you need that little thing to get you to a higher level. And the whole Hello Bucks situation, You know, they don't have to dislike Hello Buck. 06:12 They're probably frustrated by the whole situation. They don't have to dislike Hello Buck, but you do have to use it as fuel. 06:20 Say, OK, he wants to be somewhere else. Eventually, he's going to be somewhere else. But we've got to prove he's basically saying that we can't win. right? That's what Hellebuck is saying. So if you're a player on the Jets, a team that won the President's Trophy a year ago, and Hellebuck was obviously a big part of that, you have to use that as fuel. You know, the Sanders lost the other night to an emotional game against Detroit, but there's no question that they're using Kachok leaving as fuel, right? 06:56 All those guys who are still there. That's what the Jets have to do. They have to be able to say, all right, so I was at an event where, at a company called fourth lane and the other day and Jaina Hafford and Eric Lindros were talking and they were talking about how at the 2002 Olympics, both, both the men's and the women's Canadian team, who won gold medals that year used us against the world. 07:29 You know, the Canadian women's team had lost eight in a row against the U S going into that gold medal game. Remember they had all those penalties called against them in a row by the one official. 07:39 And they said, Us against the world. Us against the world. They used that. 07:45 And Lindros was on that men's team that won the gold medal, and their coach was Pat Quinn, and he was the best I've ever seen at it. He was the best at creating the us against the world mentality. And if you're the Jets right now as players, that's what you have to be using. Us against the world. Us against the world. You know, people don't believe in us. 08:12 The cap's going up to 127.5. Are we going to be able to compete? People don't believe in us. You've got to use all of that as fuel, and they're off to a great start. I think the only other thing I'm watching for the Jets is Niederreiter. He has only played two games, and his contract is up after this year, and they're winning, so you're not going to change a winning lineup around too much. 08:36 I just wonder if that's a situation where you ever get to a point where a player says, you know what, I understand it's not going to work for me here. I see how well you're doing, but I want to get a contract after this year. I might have to go somewhere where I can play a bit more. That's the other one I look at potentially around Winnipeg. I love talking to Niederreiter. He's got a great eye for the game. He's a pretty funny guy. And I was looking as I was watching the game and I was like, oh, where is he? And then I realized he's only played two of their four games. 09:09 I was like, oh, if I could see that one being a bit of a challenge for them at some point. 09:15 Okay, that's one to watch for sure. By the way, upper body injury, they called it for Josh Morrissey, as you say, we'll know a little bit more, hopefully, today on the extent of his absence, if there is one for him and the Jets. 09:29 Hopefully there isn't. There's a few injuries we're waiting to find out a bit more about. Celebrini, Marchand, which looked awful. Hopefully that's nowhere near as bad as it looked. By the way, Jenna Hefford told another story that I really, I'm going to use this, okay? 09:44 So she said that they had a phrase when the team was getting too hyper to calm them down. It was Emerald Lake. And I guess they'd gone on a retreat at some point as a teen. Yes. And so it brought back good memories, Emerald Lake. So they killed off all those penalties in a row. And Jaina Hefford in the 2002 Olympic gold medal game scored with one second left in the second period to put Canada up three to one. 10:15 And they were all hyper when they got into the room and someone just yelled out Emerald Lake. And they all calmed down and regained their focus. And, of course, they won the gold medal 4-2. So, Kyle, Mr. Seinfeld used to yell out, Serenity now. 10:33 I am going to say Emerald Lake when I think you are getting too riled up. 10:38 Oh, that's good. And we'll now know what it means. Yes, that's right. I remember hearing that story. By the way, Cassie Campbell Paschal's new book dropped this week. 10:48 So I have to tell you, so somebody called me up and they said, you know, Cassie disses you in the book. And I was like, really? What did I do? 11:01 And she said, apparently she wrote that when they won gold, it must have been in 06 where I did the interview with her post game. 11:13 I asked her if she was retiring and she said it was bad timing for the question and she was upset at it. 11:20 So Cassie, 20 years later, let me tell you, I'm sorry. 11:28 It won't be the last time I annoy somebody with a question, but I'm sorry if I ruined your moment. 11:36 Oh, gosh. 11:38 Just a Girl is the name of the book. Can't wait to read it. 11:41 And in addition to Cassie's book... 11:43 Jennifer Botterill's book is out. It's called Why Not You? And as far as I know, I don't have anything to apologize to Jennifer for. But if I do, I'm sure I will find it out quickly. Good. 12:01 All right. So the other Canadian team in action on Wednesday night, the Edmonton Oilers. And you said it, it looked troubling for them early on. A couple of power play goals, courtesy of Beckett Seneca for the Ducks. Devin Levi was asked to do a lot. And then Edmonton got playing. And five unanswered goals later, they seem to be in great shape, a world away from where they were at the opening two games against Vancouver. Still early days, but another important step, and maybe almost most importantly, Devin Levi's best performance to date, in the oiler crease. 12:42 Well, that's the thing. It was two nothing Anaheim and it looked like they were going to run the Oilers out of the building. Right. 12:48 And Levi made a couple of great saves and Mike Babcock had said before the road trip, basically the way it was going to work with Levi and Jari and Jari is going to get their next game. But that was a big one for Levi, a really big and really big for the Oilers. So, you know, when we were trying to figure out Kyle, you know, what had happened last year, how a lot of us just missed what was bubbling under the surface and what was going on between the players and the coaching staff. 13:20 You know, after the season was over, I tried to ask some players, like, what did we miss? And one of the things a couple of them told me was we didn't win three games in a row all year until January, end of January last year. 13:37 And now they have three wins in a row. Now, going back a week, the way Edmonton started the season, I didn't know that we thought we would see it this quick. But that was a big W. And, you know, I think, too, They got embarrassed by Anaheim in the playoffs last year. Anaheim controlled that series, earned that series, won that series. And especially as that series got deeper, they really, really were head and shoulders above the Oilers. 14:09 So I'm sure that was a bit of a money on the board game for them. We owe these guys kind of thing. And Levi gave them a chance to win. Now, I'm watching Bouchard now. 14:21 So the Oilers at 5-on-5 are outscoring teams 11-1 with Bouchard on the ice. And somebody texted me during the game tonight, and they're like, okay, we're talking about Bouchard for the Norris Trophy. He goes, I have a new take. And I go, oh, yeah, what's that? He goes – Bouchard for the Rocket Richard Trophy. I was just laughing. 14:52 I thought it was pretty funny. 14:56 The thing about this, though, is that how is this guy not going to get 100 points this year? 15:02 It's off to a pretty darn good clip to begin. I mean, he had 95 last year. He wasn't that far off. 15:11 Because we set the precedent as voters when Eric Carlson won it a few years ago. 15:17 And it wasn't until after he was awarded the Norris I learned how controversial a vote that was among the players. 15:27 But we set the standard. You know, there were a lot of people who weren't sure. But when he got to 100, and I know I was one of them, was like, it's 100 points. 15:40 It's a hundred points. 15:42 BX and I got into, like, we got into a big fight about it. I was like, Kevin, it's a hundred points. 15:51 And Bouchard's going to be there. 15:53 At that point, I had never seen that in my lifetime. A hundred point defenseman. 15:57 Right. 16:01 It was, that was a big deal. 16:02 Because you're 12 years old. Yes, yes. Yeah. 16:05 Yeah. 16:06 Sweet 16 is going to be awesome. 16:09 Can't wait. 16:12 Start driving. 16:15 Uh, it's, uh, it's, it's been something you can't. What year were you born? 93. 16:22 Oh my God. You're right. 16:28 I had to check back what year Leach did it. And it was 91, 92. Yeah. 16:33 Yeah, he was the first one in my. 16:37 I am so old. I am such a geezer. You are. 16:43 You are an old man. 16:45 Old and creaky, as I like to say to my son. Old and creaky. But if we set the precedent with Carlson three years ago, 100 points, you win it. 16:57 Yeah. No, I think I would like to think there's a bit more nuance to it other than... 17:02 I don't... No, you know what, Kyle? I am not letting you do revisionist history. That's exactly what happened. A hundred points. 17:11 No, that's not... Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm just saying, I think I would hope with a lot of the voting... 17:19 I know I did this because I had Carlson won that year as well. Yeah. It wasn't simply, oh, 100 points, he's at the top of my list. Like there was a little more digging below the surface. Like what? That went on. Just other aspects of his game. Because the big thing was, well, 100 points, but look at his plus minus how bad that was. Well, okay, well, how much of it was they out on the ice trying to tie the game and it's an empty net goal against? 17:44 Well, that was last. So last part, we credited Alex Gilchrist for getting... 17:48 the Hart Trophy for Corey Perry, whatever year that was. The Sharks PR staff, which was led by Scott Emmert, who I think is still there, and I think Ben Guerrero was still there too, and he's moved on. They made sure they got that out there, that about he was on the ice for more empty net goals against than anybody else. 18:12 But I'm sorry, Kyle. 18:15 You may claim it was more nuanced than that. 18:20 It was 100 points. 18:22 He won the Norris that year because he got 100 points. 18:26 Sure. When you phrase it that way, yes, I see what you're getting at. 18:30 Victory, victory, sweet victory. Okay. The old man still got it. And I will tell you that I did have a player who came to me that summer. I saw him at a golf tournament. 18:43 And he was like, there's a bunch of us who think that you guys should lose voting privileges over this. 18:51 I said, really? And they go, oh, yeah. They were upset. Well, whatever the case... 18:59 Like I said, we have set the precedent. 19:02 And, you know, Bouchard had won in this game where his coverage was a little strange and it led to one of the goals. But that's fine. It's going to happen. Everybody makes mistakes. I just think if this guy keeps going at this path he's on, we're going to invoke the Carlson precedence and he's going to get to 100 and win it. 19:30 He could shoot past it at this point. I mean, still a long ways to go. 19:37 But you know how much— Like, the NHL record for points by a D is 139. Bobby Orr. Now, I don't know about that. I think that's a little— I think that's a little crazy. 19:52 No, I wasn't going there. Like, there's four guys just over 100— McInnes, 103. Leach, 102. Carlson, Danny Podvan, 101. And then you got Coffey, peak, 138. And I think he did it five times. And Orr, I think, was six. 139. 20:15 I could see him having the third best point season by a defenseman in NHL history, easily, the way this is going. 20:25 They look much better than they did a week ago. I also thought, I mean, they eventually couldn't find an answer for Levi. But again, those young guys with Anaheim that are asked to carry a lot of the workload, they still look dangerous. 20:43 They still look dangerous. 20:46 They are a fun group to watch. 20:48 They're always going to look dangerous with those guys. And they made a deal. 20:53 Philip Hallander. I'd heard Pittsburgh was looking to move a forward. They had too many forwards. I was a little surprised. 21:01 it was him. Um, but they make the move and, you know, Stasny was funny. He posted from Disneyland on his Instagram and, I guess because he was no longer a member of the Oilers, so he went to Disneyland. We had Stasny on the podcast. I've been a huge fan of his ever since that interview where he talked about some of his mental health challenges and getting back. I hope it works out great for him in Pittsburgh. 21:33 He was just victim of a numbers game in Edmonton, and we talked on the show last weekend on the pod on Monday about how the Oilers were looking to move a depth D for a depth forward, and there it was. And I think they were definitely interested in Poitras from Boston, but I just don't know. One of the things I heard was the Oilers, if they were going to make a move, they were going to make the kind of move they did. I think Boston wanted more of a pick potentially for Poitras, and I'm not so certain Edmonton wanted to do that. 22:07 So, Kyle, speaking of this Oilers game, 22:11 Did you see Gene's intermission? 22:16 I saw his opening. 22:19 So they had a trivia game in the intermission. 22:23 Okay. We love trivia. Yes. 22:26 They called it 50-50 face-off. 22:33 And the first one was Dreisaitl, and I actually didn't see who he was playing against because I had to take a phone call. But Gene's the host, and there's two people going head-to-head. 22:47 So when I went out there for media day, I taped one of these against Bob Stauffer. 22:56 So it was a trivia game? You went head-to-head? 23:00 Yes, with Stauffer. 23:02 Oh. I can't wait till this airs. 23:07 I can only imagine what that looked like. 23:11 I'm not going to give anything away except that the questions were absolutely tailored to give Stauffer an advantage. 23:25 Yeah, not surprised. Walking in on his turf. 23:28 I know. I know. 23:32 But I was determined to beat this Principe Stauffer cheating and emerge victorious. 23:42 Did I? Tune in and find out. 23:46 We also shot something with the social team in Vegas. 23:51 I've yet to see surface anywhere. I don't know if they just went right into the trash. That was a disaster. 23:59 We did two things. One of them was, I thought was fun. 24:03 I saw a couple of things they did there, like, could you cut a banana directly in half? I saw that was on social. Yes. 24:11 Yeah, we were not asked to do that. 24:12 No. 24:14 They probably did not trust us to hold knives. 24:17 No, and they were right in thinking that. 24:21 Okay, Alex Ovechkin, Elliot, announced at the beginning of this week that this will be it. This is his last year in the NHL. He is number one in goals in the history of the game. Has a Stanley Cup back in 2018. He told the TNT panel before their game against Pittsburgh, our home opener on Wednesday night, that it was in the summer that he had kind of made it up in his mind that, yeah, one more year and that would be it for him and his family. I'm... 24:50 I want to ask, were you surprised that he had called it now, that this was going to be his last year? Or what do you make of getting it out here early in the season, that this is going to be one final year for Ovechkin? 25:09 I'm not surprised. 25:12 Um... 25:15 The only thing that kind of surprised me a bit, and I know in his TNT interview on Wednesday, he said he decided in the summer. 25:23 Initially, the word was that Ovechkin and the Capitals were potentially talking about or a two-year deal had come up. 25:32 whether they were seriously talking about it or had just been pitched by Ovechkin, that a two-year deal had come up. So when I heard he was coming back, even though he signed a one-year contract, I kind of wondered if he thought he was going to play for two. And then... 25:51 You know, when you kind of saw the way the Capitals lined up this year and the way the season started, like obviously he told the players before the game this week. But look at the first three games, Kyle, 1246, 1334, 1405. Like that's really low for him. 26:13 He didn't play a game. He had a couple games last year in the 14s relatively early, but he didn't play a game lower than 14.05 last year until his 59th game of the season. And even then, he didn't have too many. 26:29 In the third period of the game Wednesday night where they beat the Penguins, he only had two shifts. 26:36 So I would suspect... 26:40 that one of the things that Ovechkin kind of realized here was that it wasn't going to be the same for him. 26:50 The Capitals looked like, look, he's done everything he's done. Eventually, you're going to slow down. Father time is undefeated. We're seeing that here. I think the Capitals felt that one of the reasons that he carried the mail for so many years for them offensively One of the reasons the Capitals felt that they had to change things was that last year they were slow and it was too hard to score. They couldn't do it the same way. They went out and they got Tuck and they went out and they got Cairo. 27:24 Kyle, you could see where this was going to go. 27:27 That it's not like they were going to disrespect him, but his influence on the games was going to be diminished. He just wasn't going to be doing the same thing that he did before. So I would assume that when that became clear to him, I just didn't know if he was going to last more than a year. 27:52 Yes, especially because, like you said, you look at their lineup. That is a deep forward group. 27:59 They've added some burners. 28:02 And I think this is going to be a really fascinating year in terms of how Spencer Carberry handles things. He touched on his usage, only getting a couple of shifts in the third on Wednesday night because you know the organization is going to want him, celebrate him every possible way that they can all year long and if they get to the playoffs, however long that goes. 28:31 But For Carberry, it's going to be about playing his best options. 28:38 And as time goes on, it's just the way the cycle of the sporting life works and who they've got there now. 28:47 And there's going to be more and more situations for the first time since he's been there in Washington where there's going to be other bodies that are going to be preferred option over Ovechkin himself, which is strange to say, strange to think about it, but we're already seeing signs of it. So managing all of that and keeping things on the rails, you know, if there's one hallmark of him beyond the patented one-timer slap shot from the off-wing flank, it's how positive and welcoming of a presence he is as a teammate within that dressing room, regardless of what's going on. 29:32 It's just going to be an interesting one to watch because there's a couple of different factors at play here, from the farewell to putting your best players on the ice in certain situations. 29:47 They're going to make the playoffs too. To me, that's a no doubter. They're going to make the playoffs. 29:53 For sure. It's a good looking team. 29:56 And they look good in their home opener as a group on Wednesday night in defeating the Penguins. 30:04 And was your buddy's son? Really good game. Did he go to that game? I don't know. 30:08 I haven't heard from him yet. Okay. 30:11 I haven't heard from him yet. I hope it's not because they threw him into a trash compactor. 30:16 Yes. Well, stay tuned for the thought line. I've got one that... That was a good hockey game. 30:21 You know, Pittsburgh plays... Washington plays more interesting games this year, the early games they've seen, and Pittsburgh plays really exciting games. 30:33 Early on, we're getting our who's fun to watch list. Pittsburgh is fun to watch. Washington is fun to watch. 30:42 Even the Rangers were not going to be on my fun to watch list, but they've been fun to watch. Youngest team in the NHL, once Cole Baudouin was called up. Youngest team in the NHL, and I think almost half their roster, like nine players from after they sent the letter out last year. 31:04 I don't know if there's a bigger surprise. 31:08 Like we talked about Winnipeg off the top. Yeah. But I don't know. I don't even think there is. I think they have good players and they really had the, even without Hellebuck, the shell of a really good team. 31:21 I think the Rangers are the biggest surprise in the league early on. And they're fun to watch right now. 31:28 Yes, Sean Dursey has fit in there just like a glove. And what's impressive too, I mean, you know, Dorofaev is still finding his footing there. You know, they pay the big price, the big contract he gets with that deal at the draft. 31:45 He still hasn't really made his mark yet, but everybody or a lot of them around him have certainly looked great, looked really good. And Shusterkin, of course, right near the top of that list. If the Rangers are on one end for being one of the pleasant surprises early on with Winnipeg, of course, we know the Flames have been kind of the opposite of that out of the gates. And it was a bit of a story seeing Conor's area on waivers. 32:18 Yep. Played two of the first three games, and unfortunately for him, the two games he played in were 6-1 defeats at the hands of the Seattle Kraken, one at home, one on the road. He cleared waivers. He practiced with the Calgary Wranglers, their American League team, on Wednesday. Said all the right things in the media afterwards. This is a guy that has one year beyond this one remaining on his deal at $3.775 million. I imagine... 32:48 They're trying to find a trade here if possible, but as you're trying to forecast all the potential endpoints of this one, where does your mind go? 33:00 So the biggest challenge and the reason that Zari wasn't claimed on waivers is because of his cap hit. It's 3-7-7-5. 33:09 And people just can't take that right now. I think one of the teams that has kind of dipped their toes on Zari a bit are the aforementioned Rangers. Even if they wanted to do that, I just don't think they can make it fit, right? 33:25 It's too much. And one of the things that makes this even more of a challenge, So I heard last year, actually, early in the season, that the Flames had given permission for Zari to talk to other teams. That was denied to me, but it was clear that something was going on. 33:47 And, you know, I mean, you live in Calgary, right? Like, I guess it's an open secret there that Zari and Huska didn't see eye to eye, right? You said that to me. 33:56 Yeah. Reading the tea leaves. 33:59 And I like there's never everything publicly where they've come out and said as much, but you can tell. I mean, he's probably not on waivers if if that's not somewhere the case. 34:10 Well, Kyle, you are an elite tea leaves reader. I would say that to everybody listening. 34:17 But they tried to deal them in the summer. You know, I've heard a couple differing opinions on what happened there. I think Calgary was looking for a pick. I think there was some interest. And I don't know if the issue was... the pick just wasn't where Calgary wanted it to be, or the team that had said they might do it never formally did it. I've heard a couple of different versions of this, but whatever the case, it didn't happen. 34:48 And I also heard that the day before Calgary put him on waivers, they put his name on the GM group chat, and it didn't go anywhere, so they put him on waivers. 35:01 And, you know, the challenge was the number. And the real problem for the Flames is, for those of you who aren't familiar, you get to withhold three salaries on your roster. So if you trade a player, you can keep... 35:17 You can retain on three. There's a max. But the thing with it is, if a player has a long-term deal, you can't just say, we'll only do it for one or two years. No. If you retain, you retain the whole way. So Calgary has retained on Coleman, who's in Minnesota. He's done this year. But they've also retained on Nazem Qadri. And he's got two more years after this one. One plus two. 35:47 If they retain Ansari, who's got only one more season, they're going to be at two of the three retained for at least another year. And right now, they'd be at three of three. They'd be locked in at three for this year. And Calgary is a team where they're going. They're going to want to be able to have veterans that they can retain salaries on. They're just not going to want to be full or close to it. So that's number one. 36:17 They do not want to be locked in where they can't retain on anyone else. So maybe they'll have to take a contract back from somebody else. Maybe that might be what they do, depending on what's out there. You know, I think the other thing here, so based on just on who he is, Connor Zari should be in the NHL somewhere else. It's the number that it's a problem. 36:43 So, Zari... 36:45 just turned 25, which means he's still eligible for a one-third buyout. 36:51 Your buyout doesn't go to two-thirds until you turn 26. 36:55 So what they could do, and again, the problem is that he's not going to want to wait to the end of this year, but if they bought him out at the end of this season, his salary cap hit would be $600,000 next year and $600,000 the year after. It's one-third of your money over twice the term remaining. 37:14 And ultimately, that would make him a UFA this summer, and he'd still have $1.2 million in cash coming to him. 37:24 So that's another way out of this. 37:27 But the other thing he could do, and I'm not sure he'd want to do it because he'd be walking away from $3 million this year, is look at the other guys who've terminated him. the David Comps, the Texiers. I guess that's another thing there, but it's a lot of money to walk away from this year, although other players, Philip Zedina, have done it. Like, this guy is good enough to get a shot somewhere else. It is purely the number. 37:54 Purely the number. I'll tell you too, like the other day on waivers with them was Pahal and Robertson from the Rangers. And I think Pahal and Robertson are guys who can play. 38:06 It's just the numbers game is happening to some of these people early. 38:11 By the way, so with the moves that Calgary made there, one of the players they called up was Jonathan Castagna, who they got in the Uyghur deal from Utah last year. And I think he's going to make his NHL debut tonight against the Avalanche. Do you have any idea what his nickname is? I heard it's George, right? Yes, you heard. Okay, good. 38:34 Yes, I think they should have gone with Can't Stand Ya. 38:38 Why would they go with can't stand you? Cause it's just funny. Like it's, it's funnier than George. 38:44 Cause remember there's, but there's that episode where the old gym teacher calls him can't stand. Yeah. 38:52 Oh, now I know why. 38:55 I thought you were just saying that can't stand. Yeah. Yeah. 39:02 I was worried you were suggesting that about Castagna himself. No. He seems like a nice young man. 39:06 Do you think Sunia's going to play Thursday, too? I saw he skated. 39:10 Yeah. I think they're both in. I think they're two guys that we talked about, you know, short and preseason. Two guys I think they loved. They just go, we don't have room for you yet. Stay patient. They didn't have to wait very long. 39:22 Yeah. So, like, the thing about Calgary, and we talked about it, this... 39:29 this is what you sign up for when you do this. 39:33 This is what happens to you. 39:35 That said, the Gord Stelic rule, if you're going to stink, stink on the road. 39:43 That home opener did not go over well. 39:48 No, they've got an angry Colorado team coming to town that feel they got robbed of at least a point in Winnipeg on Wednesday night. So it ain't getting any easier to have a better result at home. 40:03 How about the scene in Detroit the other night? Elliott, Dylan Larkin comes back into the lineup. 40:10 He's booed early on. He's booed when he's got the puck on his stick. 40:14 None of that a real surprise, but scores, has an assist, sticks up for Dabrinkit. When things got hairy with the Sens there at the end of the second period, they win their first of the year. 40:25 They were all going after Dabrinkit there. Do you think there's something left over from that too? 40:30 It's not the first time he's been in the middle of something since he's gone to Detroit. Oh, that's right. I don't know what it is. 40:38 I was looking at Shabbat and Shabbat being the captain now and... 40:43 I wondered if he was like, okay, that's another guy. That's another guy who bailed on us. 40:50 We're going after all the bailers. 40:54 Yeah, and it was nobody's fault player-wise at the time. It just felt like a force while he was there, and it didn't last long. Anyway, now you get what you get on Tuesday night. But the Larkin scenario, as he said, it just felt good to be a hockey player again. There's no one... 41:15 decision the team or the player can make right now where everyone universally goes great that's awesome that's awesome there's going to be detractors but I suppose if you're healthy if you're able to play this is the best thing you can do until it all gets sorted 100% what's the one thing you control you control how you play 41:37 And, you know, as we said, Larkin, if he's healthy enough to play, you can't really keep him out of the lineup if he wants to play. 41:48 And the only way you're going to turn those boos into cheers is by going out there and doing exactly what he did. Yeah. 41:57 You know what? It was Daniela Bruce who did the interview with him after the game. Like, that was a great interview. Yeah. Daniela did a great job. Larkin did a great job. Like, you could see how relieved he was, right? Yeah. 42:13 So, you know, that's all you can do is play well. And, you know, other things will just have to take care of themselves. And, you know, I'll say this too. 42:26 If I was Larkin, I wouldn't talk about the trade request anymore. 42:30 It's bad for me as a media member to say that. I understand it. I probably shouldn't say that. But, you know, I would say it on TV. I thought he did the right thing by showing up and taking the booze. I think he did the right thing by playing. I don't think it benefits him or them to keep him out of the lineup if he's healthy enough to play. Obviously, he played great. And I think the right thing now is not to throw gasoline on the fire. It's simply to say, guys, like... 43:01 That stuff, I'm going to let the Red Wings and my agent handle it. I'm here to play and win games with my teammates and the fans. We need wins, and that's what I'm here for. Don't feed the beast. We're the beast. Well, you're more of a beast than I am. Don't feed the beast. 43:19 We'll talk about it ourselves. We can discuss it ourselves. He can't pour some Bernays sauce on top of whatever it is he's eating. 43:31 Bernays sauce. Good touch. 43:34 You got anything new on Edmondson while we're here? 43:37 Well, the one thing, by the way, Larkin, there's been lots of reporting that the people have tried to talk him into Montreal and He would be God there. 43:51 That would be a perfect place for him. Suzuki and him is the one-two punch. Oh, yeah. That would be a perfect place for him. 44:02 And, you know, I think you look, you've got Hudson, Caulfield, American guys very happy and thriving there. Team on the way up, though they can't beat Carolina right now, but team on the way up. 44:19 I think that would set up so well for him. 44:23 Totally. And that's been thought of ever since this all kind of came out. 44:32 And we saw the run that the Montreal had. 44:36 They're still looking for a 2C in a lot of ways. Yeah. He could be that guy. 44:40 I think it would be a perfect fit, and I think those fans would love him. Edvinson, I'm hearing a couple different things. 44:49 I think some teams have talked to Detroit about him. 44:53 I maintain that I think Detroit is telling the truth when they say their preference is to sign him, and there are some teams out there who think that they will wait. 45:06 So Frank Cervelli actually uncovered that Niketian doesn't have to sign by December 1st. Edvinson does. Niketian's status is a little different, and we'll get to him in a second. 45:22 But I think Detroit is willing to wait this out a bit, see where it goes. 45:32 But I do think 45:37 Like, I've heard they've asked for some pretty big players in return. 45:45 As they should. Like some top-end guys. 45:48 So if you're going to make them do this now, it's going to have to be something that makes them think. 45:57 And the other thing, too, with Niketian... 46:00 that Sarah Valley put out there was with each passing day, it's not like in Edmondson's case or traditional RFA that the salary cap for this year gets adjusted for days missed. So it's actually a bigger number than what the actual annual average value is. 46:19 So that works in their favor in terms of taking their time with vacation. 46:23 I just thought that RFAs were RFAs. 46:26 You know what's interesting about it is I asked a bunch of cap people about this. 46:31 And it was really interesting. There's a lot of really smart cap people in this league. 46:37 And they said that if you read the CBA, you assume that that's the correct answer, that the rules are different than Edvinson, but it's not 100%. 46:54 It's one of those things that's open to interpretation. And one of the people said to me that I would read it as his rules are different, but I wouldn't say that without checking with central registry first. 47:12 So, I mean, like the hurricanes are smart. They do their due diligence. But I wasn't aware of that. I just thought RFAs were RFAs. But apparently the designation that he's under, which is 10-2-C, it's different. I was today years old when I learned that, when I read what Frank wrote. 47:34 Hmm. Yeah, you and me both. 47:36 So, in terms of nication... 47:42 Yeah, so I've got to be wondering here if there's any chance he's going to wave the white flag of surrender. 47:50 And come crawling back to, I shouldn't say crawling, but re-sign with Carolina. 47:55 There's one of three things that's going to happen here, right? He's going to get traded, or he's going to sign, or he's going to sit out. 48:06 What does sit out? 48:08 It doesn't benefit him. 48:10 So one of the things about him is he's two more summers away from UFA because he doesn't turn 27 until after the June 30th cutoff in 2028. So he doesn't become a UFA until the summer of 2029. If he doesn't play, Kyle... 48:35 He's in the same situation he's in now. If he plays this year, he starts to get like right now he has zero leverage. Okay. 48:48 If he plays this year, he starts to gain some leverage towards being offer sheet eligible and arbitration eligible. Right. 49:00 He doesn't have that now. So there's no benefit to him. And, you know, the one thing I checked is he's not going like. 49:11 You become an unrestricted free agent in this league either at age 27 or accruing seven seasons. Because he started so late, he's not going to accrue seven seasons. 49:23 For that, you need to play 40 games. That's immaterial with him. He only needs to play 10 games as a pro this year to accrue a season. So it makes no sense for him to sit out. And the whole thing has already annoyed Carolina once when the trade to the Rangers fell apart, right? 49:45 Right. 49:47 So what you've learned is if you really annoy them, they're not going to play ball with you. 49:54 So at some point in time, if Niketian can't work out a trade, and as I could tell, I mean, one phone call could change everything, but Wednesday there was nothing there. 50:08 He's going to have to go back. 50:10 Unless there's a trade coming here that I just don't see right now, and it could change, I freely admit it, sooner or later, he is going to have to come back. 50:21 One-year deal likely just to kind of kick the can down the road, in a sense, and just allow the guy to get playing again? 50:29 I would assume so. 50:32 I would assume so. 50:33 All right. Unless Carolina just squeezes and says... 50:38 We're not doing this unless you give us two years. 50:42 Right, right, right. Because they're the ones in this case that kind of has the benefit of time here. 50:49 Because if they say give us two years, then they get two years and there's a year away from unrestricted free agency. 50:58 They might, you know, they might, I mean, you just never know, but they could do that. 51:05 Okay, a couple of other things we wanted to touch on. Gavin McKenna, first overall pick, got his first point Tuesday, got his first goal Tuesday. As he said in the postgame, a huge monkey off the back. His fourth game in the NHL. 51:24 He gets his first two points, and it's a monkey off his back. Now, I suppose we all know what he was signing up for. A little different as a first overall pick going into a Toronto market that was trying to win again right away. I will just say, Elliot, last week as part of... season opener in our first Saturday, had a chance to speak for a little bit with his parents, Willie and Crystal. And the one thing they had said, this was before the first game against Montreal, that they felt, they said, Toronto's doing something right there internally with how they're handling him because they felt he seemed more comfortable, looked more comfortable just in their interactions with him and watching him on the ice. 52:07 there, beginning his career as a Maple Leaf than the early days with Penn State a year ago. 52:14 And I'm sure just a lot more comfortable, even more so now, getting a little bit of production out of the way and a big win for Toronto Tuesday. 52:23 Wait a sec. Wait a sec. I heard... 52:28 I heard that they weren't handling him well because he wasn't taking optional skates. 52:32 Wasn't that the big hot takery in Toronto this week? I thought we were going to be able to get through this without having to even address that. 52:42 I can't believe that. I can believe it, but it still is like, ugh. 52:47 Come on. First of all, the kid's pretty funny. Guys wear hoodies and sweats to games now. I know. We're really worried about optional skates and who's out there. 52:57 See, I just think that if you look at Toronto, they are really... 53:03 Like, they are really being careful with him. Really being careful with him. One of the reasons, because he's about 115 pounds soaking wet, right? But they are really being careful with him. It goes back to no... 53:19 no rookie tournament, didn't put them with Matthews initially. Like, I assume, and I do assume that this not skating, because you know all these young guys who play hockey, right, like McKenna, they're like, and I say this in a positive way, they're nerds. They want to go on the ice. Like, this just reeks of Andy O'Brien who was running their human kinetic department saying, we think it's just better for you if you Just get used to it this way. 53:50 I say this with no basis in fact, but when I see this, I assume that that's what this is, right? Anyway, I was laughing as this became a controversy, and I went to the morning skate on Tuesday against Nashville, and the kid's got a good sense of humor because they asked him about, like, how did you know you were in Toronto? And he said, when I had to come out and talk to you guys because I didn't have a point in three games. Like, it was just such a funny line. right i said you know what this kid's got a pretty good head on his shoulders but You mentioned he scored his first NHL goal, but someone else made a really good point to me, and it was after he got his first point. 54:33 And how did this first point come? Stollers passes him the puck. He has it for a millisecond. He tips it to a streaking John Tavares at his own face-off circle, and Tavares goes down the ice and scores. 54:49 And... 54:50 You know, one of the executives in this league who's a former player, he said that he was watching that and he said, that kid, that's the easiest assist that kid might get in his career, right? The least work of an assist he might do his entire career, but none of them will make him feel better. He said, it's not... 55:10 There is a direct correlation between him getting that point and him scoring that first goal because all of a sudden he just feels so much better about himself. There's no bagels next to his name anymore, right? 55:24 So he's out there and he's – I mean, it was a great shot. 55:29 It was funny, you know, the – one of the chat groups I was on, I actually didn't watch the first half of that game. I, I took Steph out to dinner because God knows she deserves it for being married to me. But I took her out for a nice dinner and the, and the group chat was like, I didn't even have to look at the score. They were like, This is a disaster. And it was all the usual suspects, Kyle. You know who they are. This is a disaster. 56:00 They were joking guys were going to get fired already. 56:06 And then they turned around. And then by the time I actually picked up my phone, they were right back in the game. And I was like, wait a sec. The way you guys were talking, I thought the score of this game was 10 to nothing. But hockey is better when there's no defense, and there was not a lot of defense in that game. 56:25 No, no, not at all. And for as encouraging it was for Toronto to see McKenna find the back of the net and just be a little more involved, I would say as much or even more so as how Austin Matthews looked too. Four points. 56:40 You had somebody reach out to put our Sportsnet stats crew to work about McKenna's goal. 56:47 I'm going to get his name because it was an Insta DM. It was Andrew Dalgleish. 56:55 And he said, guarantee I'm not the first to ask today. And he was, Andrew. Don't hold yourself back. Give yourself the credit. What is the most first overall picks on the ice at the time a first overall pick scores their first NHL goal? Because McKenna scored, Stamkos and Matthews were on the ice. And then he writes, Go Stars, Andrew from St. John. 57:18 So do we have an answer to this? 57:20 Yes. 57:21 And it was Sportsnet Stats and NHL Stats putting their heads together for this one. 57:27 That was tied for the most. One other time have we seen something similar. What year? 57:34 1980. Boy, that was the big draft. 57:41 Can we come back to this? I want to think about this. 57:44 Come back to it? 57:46 Well, just talk about something else, and then I won't pay attention while I'm thinking about it. 57:54 How is that different from any other time I speak on this show? 57:56 This is true, actually. 58:00 I'm trying to think, who was the number one pick that year? Was that the year that Doug Wickenheiser was the number one pick? Yeah. Yes, it was. Is he the goal scorer? He is the goal scorer. Okay, so I'm trying to think. Who are the other two? Well, would Guy Lafleur have been on the ice? Yes. 58:18 All right. 58:19 First of all, I just had to remember who the 1980 draft was. Yeah. Because 79 was the one where Ray Bork went like sixth overall. Yeah. 58:34 Rob Ramage was the number one pick of that draft. So Doug Wickenheiser from Guy Lafleur, or Guy Lafleur was on the ice, and I'm trying to remember, was it a Canadian or was it on the other team they were playing? 58:48 It would have been a Canadian. 58:52 Was Rajon Ool on the ice? 58:54 Well done, Elliot Friedman. 58:58 Yes! Yes! 59:00 And you want to talk about something else. 59:04 I just needed a chance to focus. Remember who the 80 draft was. 59:08 Yeah, so Rajon Uwe, first overall in 69. Gilafer, first overall in 71, of course. And they were on the ice for Doug Wickenheiser's first goal as a first overall pick. 59:18 I was trying to remember who other Canadian first overall picks were. Because they had some earlier, but I don't think that any of them would have been... No, all right, well, good. I feel good. Good. 59:32 Good. 59:35 That's me patting myself on the back. 59:38 Good enough to get to final fives or anything else you want to get out of the way first? 59:42 Oh, you know, just a couple other things. 59:47 So guys who, now that Bunting signed, guys who aren't signed yet. So Tarasenko, and I still think there's this thing with Florida potentially. We'll see. Line A. 60:08 David Perron. I also heard Brandon Sod wants to play. 60:13 Hmm. 60:14 I got to tell you, I would be curious to see. We talked about this a bit on the radio. 60:21 Calgary, I think, has talked about line A, but they're nervous about taking one of their young kids off the power play. 60:29 Okay. Okay. 60:34 I just, and I get it. 60:36 Like, early on, you want to reward your kids. 60:41 But if this continues, I wonder if Calgary signs one of these guys. 60:46 That makes most sense. 60:49 If this continues. 60:50 If this continues. 60:54 Also, they sure do. Also, I did want to... Oh, so I got a call. Remember on the last pod, we were talking about goalies using white laces? Yes. And how we would lock them in a cage. You would buy out anyone if you were a GM. You would buy out anyone, yes. So I got a call from somebody who was a goalie dad, and he said, you know why they have white laces? And I said, why is that? 61:20 And he said, because sometimes shooters only have a quick second or millisecond to shoot, and they'll think those white laces are the net, when it's really the glove. 61:32 Ah, the old camo move. 61:35 The old camo move. 61:37 Sneaky, sneaky, sneaky. But he called me specifically to tell me that. That's why a goalie would have white laces. 61:50 And I said, you know what, that's a good one. 61:52 I'm going to put it in. That's the goalie's response to using black tape for a shooter, trying to disguise the puck on the blade. Yes. But of course, as Kelly Rudy would always say, we do have depth perception, you know. 62:10 No, I've seen Kelly drive. No, he doesn't. 62:15 You're on your own on that one. 62:19 All right, let's get to the final plot. So Tuesday night, Vegas laid the boots to Seattle, in Seattle. 62:28 But one of the more entertaining moments of the evening was after Victor Olofsson took a cross-check and And Brandon Montour, as we learned in the postgame, went after Mark Stone, the captain of the Golden Knights, because he thought he wasn't doing his job as a captain and a teammate sticking up for Olofsson. 62:52 Stone didn't particularly care to hear that. 62:55 And they went at it. Brandon Montour is no stranger to mixing it up that way. He has a very... 63:05 Busy vocabulary, we'll put it that way, in all the best ways. 63:11 Mark Stone has defended himself, defended others when he's had to over his career. Not something he does often, but the guy can still hold his own. That was entertaining. I think both guys were kind of laughing. The referees couldn't even separate him at the end. 63:29 It was, first of all, can I just say I liked everything about that from the two people involved? And I'll tell you why I really liked it from Montour's point of view especially. 63:42 Seattle as a team is really trying to create an identity and some personality. 63:49 And he did that there. 63:51 He did that. 63:54 You know, I think if it means that they have to play the heel a little bit more, why not? 64:02 Why not? You know, you've had some big nights this year, but in this one, you're having a really rough night. You're getting beaten up. You're getting embarrassed. Who says you should go down easy? Why not? You know... 64:17 That's the thing, like Seattle had that one exhibition game with Calgary. We were all talking about it, about how they kind of stood up for each other and they didn't like what they saw. And that was the moment of this so far of this very young season where we probably talked about Seattle the most. Here's a situation where a guy shows it's not a good night for you. A guy shows some edge. He shows some snarl. He says, you know what? We're going down tonight, but we're not going down quietly. 64:50 We're going to be a little bit sore loser-ish. I love that. I think Seattle needs more of that. I think they need more of that bite, that edge, personality, and Montour's going to do it. And you know what, Stone? 65:06 You know, as you said, he's done it before. But, you know, I have to say... 65:13 because of some of the injuries he's had in the past, Kyle, I'm not crazy about seeing him fighting. But you know what? When you're the C, sometimes you got to do it. 65:24 And if a guy's going to challenge your team and it's a lopsided game, they don't really need you to score and win it. 65:30 Why not? I loved everything about that. Everything. But I particularly loved it from Montour because I think Seattle needs that maybe more than any other team. Like right now, Seattle, they're growing the identity. They need people to other teams to dislike them a little bit more. 65:53 And that'll work. I bet you a few of those Vegas guys were like side-eyeing the Kraken on the way out. That's never a bad thing. 66:05 I heard Lindgren got hurt that night too for Seattle, which is too bad. I really like Lindgren. And their game against Edmonton last Saturday, Bouchard was mad at Lindgren for the hit that knocked him out of the World Championships. 66:22 And Lindgren, I guess, knew it was coming. 66:25 And good on the others, because apparently I heard that Bouchard wanted to do it. And some of those guys told him, you're not going to do it. We'll handle it. And I heard there was more than one guy willing, but Frederick... was the guy who did it. And it was interesting hearing that both Kevin and Colby saying, because I think Ryan Lindgren's a pretty tough, hard, edgy guy. And they said he is, but not so much as a fighter. He's more of like, that's the way he plays. He said Trent Frederick is probably out of his weight class a bit, but he wasn't running away from it. 66:58 But just unfortunate. I heard he got hurt and he might miss some time. 67:02 Hmm. That's been a feisty start to the year. Started in preseason in a few instances and... 67:10 It's carried over a lot of places here. 67:11 It's happened a lot. I know everyone's talking about it now, and it's true, but it's been that way the last couple of years. Fights have been up early. 67:21 I don't think anything's going to change, Kyle, about the overall setup, but there are more people than I thought grumbling about the shorter training camp and the fewer exhibition games. 67:35 You know, generally, I have to check, but it always seems like there's injuries early, although there do seem like there are a lot this year. You know, nobody's going to mourn for the exhibition games because if you're going to pay, you know, I was talking about it with my brother-in-law tonight. 67:55 You know, he was saying that You know, if you're going to pay for two extra games, they might as well mean something as opposed to exhibition games. So no one's going to mourn for them. But you wonder if all this sloppiness and if people believe any of the injuries is because guys are playing fewer exhibition games and there was shorter training camp. 68:17 Not that I think it's going to change. 68:20 No, and we went through some of the injury stuff early in the show here, Elliot. We forgot to mention Sam Montembeau too, left practice for Montreal. Jacob Fowler's called up, so there's another one to kind of, as we see the news of the day fall out today and going forward, what Sam Montembeau's status is moving forward for Montreal as well. It is not going away anytime soon, the injury storyline around the NHL in the early days of this season. Okay, that's the final thought. And why don't we take our first break, come back with another edition of The Thought Line. 68:52 You are listening to 32 Thoughts, the podcast, and it continues after this. 69:12 Okay, revving it back up for another edition of The Thought Line presented by BetMGM. Make it legendary. Elliot, the floor is yours to kick things off. 69:21 Oh, yes. My shout-outs. I had a few of them I wanted to give. Thank you for reminding me, Kyle. Okay, so first of all, I went, as I've mentioned before, I like to go to Yorkdale and have a coffee, Americano, at Aritzia while I walk around the mall, one of my favorite things to do. And I ran into a podcast fan named Pino, and he was wearing one of the coolest sweatshirts I have ever seen, Kyle. It was a cronk gym sweatshirt now you're probably too young to know but cronk gym was the gym in detroit that trained a lot of famous boxers including one of my favorites thomas hitman hearns so when i saw it on him i actually stopped him i said that's a great sweatshirt and then we started just talking about hockey in the pod for a bit but Pino is a big fan. 70:17 I also wanted to shout out an Instagram DM follower, Mitchell Joseph, who sent a great video about Phillies fans that we sent to Dom. We were all having a good laugh about that one. 70:33 And Noah Sear. 70:36 My phone auto-corrected it to Noah Kerr, but it's Noah Sear, sent an Insta DM question. Hey, Frege, listening to the pod, and noticed there was no mention of Queens taking down your Mustangs. A little disappointed by this, LOL. Appreciate what you guys do. Yes, I looked it up, Noah. Queens did indeed beat Western 41-30 last weekend, but the key thing is, in my universe, that did not happen. 71:06 Well, I'll tell you, in the booth Saturday night in Toronto, it was certainly mentioned. 71:12 Why? Who went there? Did Cuthbert go to Queens? Chris Cuthbert, yes. 71:15 He did, eh? 71:16 Yes. And Chris Lund, who's part of the Leafs PR department, they were gallivanting about the arena gleefully after that result. 71:28 So it existed in their, it happened in their worlds. 71:31 Oh, okay. Well, I mean, like neither one of those two is genius. So that kind of explains things. Okay. And then finally, I just wanted to mention one of our great podcast listeners, Lucas Hanashiro, who often writes in and he writes in on an XDM. Hey, Elliot, hope you're doing great. I am listening to today's edition of the podcast and got to the part where you talk about the broken sticks and non-calls during the weekend. I wonder if this penalty against Linus Carlson on opening night had any influence on the officials. 72:04 The Oilers scored and tied the game on the ensuing power play with less than a minute to go. You know the penalty. I know Dom knows the penalty we're talking about because he works on the radio of that Oiler Canucks game. You know that one, Dom, right? Yes, sir. Kyle, do you know which one that Lucas is talking about? 72:21 Yes. Yes, I am. 72:22 Yeah, so I think Lucas could be onto something. Maybe... 72:26 Maybe there was a little bit of after that call because it was unfortunately a bad call. 72:33 Yes. And it's interesting that He brings that up because we got another submission into the thought line about the broken stick slashing calls from Kenny, who is a lifelong Hawks fan. And he, like you, understands the whole idea of even though you don't love the penalty most of the time, but if the stick breaks, the penalty is called because now the player is without a stick. putting him at a disadvantage. He said what drives him nuts is if a guy slashes a stick out of a player's hands, and that is automatically called. 73:11 It drives him crazy because there's times where the onus has to be on the player to not have a better grip on your stick. 73:19 And I can understand that one. Now I know that the Vancouver one, the stick broke, but it wasn't much of a slash and the play was gone. So that was a tough one all around. 73:28 Lucas, it's always great to hear from you, bud. 73:32 Yeah, it got some reaction. I think people are thinking the same thing. 73:37 I think generally people hate the automatic call. And the only reason I think it happens that way is to take the judgment out of it. 73:46 Right. 73:48 Well, let's see now. We've kind of got, I don't want to say a precedent, but we've seen some examples of it not being automatic here in the first week. 73:57 Let's see where it takes us. 73:59 Okay. Brian, so you remember the trivia question last pod about same last name, same jersey number, same team, but no relation? Yep. 74:10 Brian writes, here's one that's even better. 74:13 Billy Harris and Billy Harris. 74:18 Both played for the Leafs, one during the 60s and one in the 80s. Yes. Both wore 15. No way. Same name, different people, same number, same team. 74:29 No way. I remember that Billy Harris, the second one, was the first overall pick in the NHL draft by the Islanders one year and later was traded to the Leafs. 74:39 Oh, yes. 74:40 I believe that was I think he came from L.A. in the Ian Turnbull deal. I'm going to look that up. But I think that's that was where he came from. But what a pull, Brian. 74:51 What? Yes. He said his dad has been using this trivia question for decades as he should be. 74:59 And and yeah, I went and double checked the 63 examples. 75:03 It is it is the only one. 75:06 That involves the same first name and last name, same jersey number, no relation, same team. 75:11 Wow. 75:13 Well, Brian, your dad is a genius, and I just looked it up. I didn't realize this, but Billy Harris was indeed taken first overall in 1972. That was the Islanders' first ever draft pick. 75:30 Oh, yeah. He was the first. The Islanders came in for 72-73, so he was their first-ever draft pick, and that was a great draft for them. It got them Lorne Henning, Bob Nystrom. 75:45 Gary Howitt was a 10th-round pick, and King Richard, Richard Brodeur, was taken in the seventh round. And so Brodeur played 400 games and the rest of them all played like Henning and Nystrom and Howitt all won Stanley Cups there. But what I didn't realize, I was right about the Ian Turnbull trade. He came to Toronto for internal, but I didn't realize that he went from the Islanders to the Kings in the Butch-Goring deal. The deal, which was sort of like the final cornerstone of putting together that Islanders dynasty. 76:15 Goring came right before they won their first Stanley Cup. 76:20 What a pull, Brian. What a pull by the Bryans here, senior and junior. I don't even know if that's your dad's name, but we're going with senior and junior. 76:31 That's very good. Well, we're keeping in line with the two Billy Harrises. Yes. We're assuming two Bryans. That's great. All right, let's keep this thing going. Rick from Washington, D.C. Hello, 32 Thoughts crew. Elliot is so out of line. I had to write in for the first time. 76:48 Okay. 76:49 All right. On the last pod, he asked us Capitals fans to take it easy on his law school Penguins fan friend when he wears his Crosby jersey to Caps games this year. I will now personally go out of my way to give him the hardest time at every game I can find him at this season. The hatred between the caps and pens is still very much alive, and he needs to feel that every time he chooses to wear that jersey in our building. Love the pod, keep up the great work, and let's go caps. 77:20 I have to find out because, of course, obviously on Wednesday night was the first game this year, Capitals-Penguins in Washington. I have to find out if he wore it there. But I understand. I get it. I do. I get it. 77:33 Yeah, you had to expect at least one of those. 77:35 I had a feeling that was not going to go undiscussed, put it that way. 77:41 Yes. Well, I at least appreciate that you tried to use your power for good and not for evil. 77:46 Yes, I do try. 77:49 Rob from Westchester, PA. To the doctor of hockey news, Elliot and his two nurses, Kyle and Dom. 77:57 That's a new one. 78:00 These guys aren't smart enough to be nurses. Nurses have to be smart. That's true. 78:06 And I can't stomach blood, so I'd have no hope. Really? Yeah. I don't know. I didn't know that. Well, it's needles. 78:14 Really? Yeah. I tried to go, Dana and I years ago, like she went to go give blood and I was like, oh, I'll hop on the bandwagon here. It seems like a noble thing to do. I couldn't even get through, they do a questionnaire before of like kind of basic health questions or have you traveled to certain countries within the last three months or whatever it is. And all that time I'm thinking, after I get through this questionnaire, then I have to go to that room over there and then they're going to get the needle. And I was like, I had to sit down. 78:43 No way. 78:43 I didn't even get like wired up and I'm on the gurney with like an orange juice box. 78:49 It was pathetic. It was best intentions, but they were like, yeah, maybe don't come back. 78:59 I've never met anybody like this. I've never, I've, I've heard of this phenomenon before. It's never happened. 79:08 I, I'm glad I can be this one in your life then. 79:14 Somehow I'm going to have to find a way to get you to do a needle on air. 79:18 Oh, all right. 79:20 Tattoo, maybe. I don't have any tattoos. By the way, just a little teaser then about getting somebody to do something. I have today in my mind, I decided what your punishment is going to be for losing in-season cup last year. That's all I'm going to say for now. 79:35 I thought I was going to eat spicy Indian food. 79:39 Well, that's Randy. That's Randy. 79:42 So I got to do both of them because Emily's out. Yes. 79:45 Yes. 79:46 I don't know. I think we need a ruling on this one. I don't know who... We're not giving it to Dom to rule on it. Who's ruling on it? 79:56 I don't know. I have to think about this. 80:00 It's not even worth asking Dom because I just said he's not smart enough to be a nurse. And we also know he's going to rule against me. I need to find someone who might actually give me a fair trial. 80:14 Oh, no. 80:15 That's not how this works. You as the loser don't get to dictate the judge and jury. That's, you know what? 80:25 I'm going to try my best. 80:27 Okay. Well, this is, all right. Stay tuned on that front then. 80:31 Rob. What is it? I'll tell you later. 80:35 Well, no, it's like, this is like that old joke. How do you keep an idiot in suspense? I'll tell you later. 80:40 Yeah. 80:42 But if it's something I'm willing to do, I might just concede. 80:47 The audience wants to know. 80:49 All right. 80:53 Here's my thing. Okay. 80:56 You and me, separate, but together, separate tubs, three minutes. Cold tub? Cold tub. 81:05 three minutes in a cold tub at nine or 10 degrees Celsius. 81:10 Oh, I remember a year ago, I talked about doing this and I never really got around to it. 81:16 Okay. So what you're saying to me is because my partner in defeat bolted us for the WWE, I have to do hot ones, Indian food style and the cold tub. I have to take both punishments. 81:34 Yes, yes, exactly. That's in the in-season cup charter of rights. 81:41 The charter of rights. Okay, you know what? I'll do them. 81:45 Yeah, and I'm doing the cold tub with you. I'm not going to stand there and watch you suffer. 81:49 I'm going to do it right in lockstep. 81:53 We will get through it together. 81:53 I know how much you want to stand there and watch me suffer. Okay, you know what? We got a deal. Love it. Three minutes, that'll be a challenge for me. 82:01 But I'll try it. You can pick a song to get us through it. 82:06 We'll make it happen. I'll pick freeze frame. 82:09 Good. Great choice. 82:11 Okay. Speaking of freeze, Rob's been stuck in pause here waiting to get his question out. Oh, geez. 82:19 Rob. Sorry, Rob. That's okay. He writes, as a longtime Flyers fan, I was wondering... If you heard or know of any ill will towards the Flyers organization from other team owners and GMs for the dramatic impact the offer she'd had, not only for present day NHL, but for many years to come, that offer seemed to jump player salary by six to eight million per year in some cases, and now having salaries over the $20 million mark per season. Truly love to listen to the pod. Thanks for all the hard work you guys put in week to week. 82:53 I don't know if anybody's said anything to them directly. Like, I just don't know. But people have made comments to me. 83:05 But I don't know that anyone said anything to them. Like we just had a board of governors meeting and the flyers had representatives there. I don't know if anyone said anything to them. I don't know if anyone said anything to them during the summer. But, you know, there have been snide comments here and there whenever another big contract gets done. Now, I will say this. 83:31 I don't know if it would have gone to that number, but I do think there were other teams that were looking at doing an offer sheet that would have taken us into a new level. 83:44 18, I don't know, but there were definitely some offer sheet threats this summer. 83:49 And if it wasn't Philly, it would have been someone else to some level. 83:59 For sure. 84:00 And you know what? 84:01 Also, Philly, it looks like, is going to get the draft this year. So if the league was really mad at them, you know, you figure they wouldn't get something like that, right? Barring a major change this year, Philly is supposed to get the draft. I know there was supposed to be a site survey either last week or this week. 84:21 Excellent. 84:23 Up next, Ross from Raleigh, North Carolina. Kyle Dominelli, great to have you back for another season. While looking at the Red Wings roster, I noticed they have four players that share the same birthday. Victor Arvidson, JT Comfer, Marco Casper, and Keegan Colasar were all born on April the 8th. 84:45 Out of a 23-man roster, there is just a 0.2% chance of this happening. And that shrinks to 0.001% when only looking at the 13 forwards. Has there ever been a roster with more shared birthdays? Love the pod. Keep up the great work. Let's go Blues. 85:04 Wow. 85:07 Wow. 85:10 Ross, I have to say this. I'm... 85:14 Unbelievably impressed you found that. I've learned over the years that fans' knowledge and interest in minutiae is incredible. There will be people that will find out things like this. 85:25 I don't know of anyone or any team that's had anything like this. I remember some athletes who share specific birthdays, like Wayne Gretzky and Vince Carter. When Vince Carter broke through as half man, half amazing, as Chuck Swirsky called him with the Raptors, then it was a big fascination that he shared the same birthday as Wayne Gretzky, just two great players who were the same day. But other than that, Kyle, I don't know if you checked it, but I wouldn't know that off the top of my head. 85:59 Right. How could you know? Well, some people would. That's the kind of thing that Ron would know. 86:06 That's true. I was just talking about you specifically in this case. 86:11 Not you as the general public. There's only one other instance of this. Not more than four, but the same amount. How long ago was this? So this was 1984. Philadelphia Flyers. 86:26 had Daryl Stanley, Paul Holmgren, and Rich and Ron Sutter, all born December the 2nd. 86:33 The Sutterbots is almost like cheating. They should only count as one. 86:38 Well, that's the closest to what we've got in Detroit this year. 86:43 Have you ever looked up your birthday to see what famous athletes or people share your date? 86:54 Yeah. Well, I remember we used to have a calendar one year that had all the current NHL players of that year, like their birthday sprinkled throughout. 87:07 So I remember my brother and I go into our birthdays. I was jealous. I think he shares a birthday with Timu Solani. 87:12 Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. 87:15 I think mine was, yeah, Garth Snow I had. He's July 28th. Nice. I don't remember who else. But I've never looked at just other general athletes. 87:26 I just remember that one calendar I had as a kid. 87:29 So I'm September 27th, and I remember Mike Schmidt, Steve Kerr, and former Toronto Argonaut receiving great Terry Greer. 87:45 And later in life, when she started becoming the elite of the elite Olympians, Clara Hughes. 87:53 Oh, outstanding. 87:54 And Meatloaf and Lil Wayne. 87:58 Oh, my gosh. 88:02 You're just another dude in that mix. 88:04 Yeah, I know. Seriously. I'm like the 10 millionth most important birthday on that date. 88:12 That's awesome. 88:13 What about you, Dom? You know who's famous on your birthday? I have some elite ones. Okay. What's your birthday? September 2. 88:21 September 2. Okay. We missed it this year. Okay. 88:26 I have Selma Hayek and Canadian legend Keanu Reeves. 88:31 Wow. Wow. And for my hockey birthdays, I have Barkov... 88:37 Jason Blake, Brian McGratton, and conduct legend Sammy Salo. That's a good group. That is a good group. 88:46 I can tell you one thing. You and Selma Hayek, you don't share the same parents. 88:51 No, we do not. 88:55 Great observation, Fridge. 88:56 Thank you. Thank you very much. 89:00 Oh, God. All right, let's keep this going here. A couple more. This one's a voicemail, courtesy of Kenneth from Albuquerque. 89:07 Good morning, gentlemen. Kenneth Ferguson calling from Albuquerque, New Mexico during the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Look it up. It's gorgeous. 89:17 Quick question. 89:19 As teams are getting sorted early in the season and putting players on waivers, I was curious if in that 24-hour waiver period, there was an NHL rule saying that player couldn't be traded for until the waiver situation is sorted out. 89:39 Was curious about a situation. Maybe a team sees a player that they're interested in. And instead of waiting the day to see if they get the waiver claim, maybe they call and offer a late round pick in return for some salary retention. 89:56 Again, just kind of curious about that. Appreciate the pod. You guys are the best. 90:00 Kenneth, once you're in on waivers, you're, you're locked in for the 24-hour period. Now, one thing that can happen is I have seen situations where teams have waited to see if a player cleared waivers so they know if they'd have the ability to send them down. Because if you claim a player, you have to keep them on your roster. You can't just send them down if... You take someone from someone else's roster, you have to keep them on yours. There are situations where a team will wait to see, okay, the player clears waivers. 90:34 Now we know we can trade for them and send them down. Ottawa did this with Jonas Johansson, who they traded for with Tampa. They know that they can send them down for the waiver period because... he had cleared. Most cases, Kenneth, a player goes on waivers and other teams know he's been available. For example, one thing I found out after it happened was Connor Zari, when he went on waivers with the Flames, they put him out on the GM group chat the day before. 91:05 So teams knew that Zara, I mean, Calgary had tried to trade him in the summer. It hadn't worked out, but they reminded everybody he was available the day before they did it. So that's kind of where it is. And once you're in the waiver circuit, you can't be dealt. 91:24 I'm just, I'm, I've done a head first dive into the balloon Fiesta that he referenced. Yeah. 91:32 This is, have you ever heard of this? No, what is it? It's a nine-day event with over 500 hot air balloons that are launched up into the sky over this big park. 91:44 Really? 91:46 Anyway, apparently it's quite the spectacle. Where is it? 91:49 In Albuquerque. 91:51 Wow. 91:54 Have you ever seen, I would see that. 91:57 Have you ever been in a hot air balloon? 92:00 I don't believe so. I would do it. I know some people are like, no way. I feel it's something you would know. 92:05 I would do it. 92:07 I don't remember ever being in a hot air balloon. You're right. I probably would know it. Dom, have you been in a hot air balloon? 92:13 No, but I feel like the event would be full of hot air. 92:17 It's perfect for us. 92:20 Go back to sleep. That's just so bad. Have you ever seen the movie The Red Balloon? 92:28 No. 1956. 92:33 Le Ballon Rouge. It's a French movie. 92:37 It's like half an hour long. I saw it when I was in elementary school. 92:44 I think it's on YouTube. 92:46 That left an impression on me. 92:48 Hmm. 92:50 Would recommend is what you're saying. 92:52 Yes. 92:53 Okay. 92:53 Okay. 92:56 All right. 92:56 But I would also go to this Albuquerque balloon festival. Okay. 93:01 One final one here. 93:01 I guarantee to you, we are going to get tweets and thought line from people who've seen the red balloon. 93:10 Yeah. If there's one thing we have learned here. 93:14 It will find any place, this bloody program. 93:20 It can infiltrate anywhere, from Grand Junction airports to balloon fiestas. It's fantastic. One final one here for each. Chris from Edmonton. Hi, gang. Nathan's question on Monday's pod led to a discussion around Yuri Houdina's 250 games played and three cups. That question had me thinking, who has the best games played to cups won ratio in NHL history? For example, I know one of you isn't a mathlete, 100 games played and two cups won would be a 50 games played to cup ratio. 93:58 If there are multiple people with one game played to one cup, extending the question to multiple cups would be fun. Conversely, who has the worst games played to cup ratio? Ray Bork comes to mind immediately, though I could be wrong. 94:12 No, there's players who played a ton of games and didn't win. I mean, because there's guys who played a ton of games and would be zero, right? 94:20 For the sake of this argument, there's at least one cup win. 94:24 Oh, okay. 94:26 But the earlier question about the best ratio from games played. And again, for this conversation, it's regular season games played. Yes. Stanley Cups won. 94:41 In 2006... 94:48 Anton Babchuk won a Stanley Cup with the Flames. 94:53 So with the Hurricanes, excuse me. 94:55 And he was traded there during the season. And he played like 40 games in the NHL at the time. And I think I remember some of the Carolina players... 95:06 joking with him. I'm trying to remember if it was him. In the celebration, they're like, you've played 40 games and you've got a Stanley Cup. That's a joke. I think it was him, but I'm looking him up now. He was there then, but he ended up playing 289 games. I don't know that that would qualify. There's got to be some guys who played. Then again, I wonder if a guy played for two or three years on a really good team and That's the answer. 95:38 But Babchuck was the first guy who jumped into my head because I think he played 40 games when he first won. 95:46 So, it's a great memory that you have. 95:51 You want the answer? Okay, give me an idea. 95:53 I want to see if I can... 95:58 We're going back a ways. If I can figure this out. We're going back a ways? 96:01 Yes. 96:02 When the world was much different. 96:06 So it's got to be like somebody who was on the Canadians when they were really good and didn't play a lot. Not the Canadians, but it was a dynasty, right? Like a good team? 96:18 Yeah. 96:20 What year? 96:21 1950. 96:24 So it was a Red Wing. 96:26 Yes. 96:28 I've never heard of this player. 96:29 I would be very impressed if you had. 96:34 Unless you're familiar with the story. 96:37 No, if there's a story, like when I think back of Red Wings around that time who may not have been the biggest names, I think of Leswick, I think of Pristai, but those are the names that jump into my head. If it's someone less than that, I probably don't know it. 96:57 Okay, you ready? 96:59 Yes. 97:01 So it's a guy by the name of Doug McKay. Okay. 97:03 Okay. 97:06 So Doug McKay, that season, was playing in the American League for their then-farm team, the Indianapolis Capitals. 97:14 Okay. 97:15 He wins a Calder Cup with Indianapolis. 97:20 And a short while thereafter, the Red Wings are playing in the Cup Final. 97:25 They call him up for, I think, Game 3 of the Final. 97:30 He plays the one game. 97:32 That is it. He never plays a regular season game in the NHL. He never plays another playoff game in the NHL. 97:40 Oh, wow. I'm looking at him now. What a pickup. 97:44 He has one NHL game to his name. 97:48 It was in the Stanley Cup final for the Wings. They won the Cup. 97:52 Now, the story I read... And he also won the championship the next year, too, in the USHL for the Omaha Knights. 98:00 Yeah. So he won... I'm looking at his hockey DB. He won three in a row. 98:05 Well, three championships in two years. 98:08 Mm-hmm. And the story I read, so it was a different... 98:13 the rules were different back then. Now that, that player, that person, if that's what you did, the only thing you did in your NHL career was play one game in the Stanley Cup final and that team won that year, you would get your name on the cup, but it was more so the team decided who was on back then. So I don't think his name was on it. Um, the cup officially, but, uh, I know it's been recognized in other circles. Anyways, that's, He takes the cake. 98:40 Never played a regular season game in the NHL and has a Stanley Cup win next to his name. 98:46 Doug McKay. 98:47 I never was getting that. What a pull. Was that Sportsnet Stats or did you figure that out? 98:52 No, I was not figuring that out. No, that was Richard Choi and the gang at SN Stats who dug that out for us. 98:58 Great job, Richard. Doug McKay. Wow. Yeah. 99:02 I wonder if Doug McKay... Yes. 99:05 So he too, like, remember he played... 99:08 He was the coach, but he had to fill in to play goalie. And they won the cup that year. But he also did spot duty as defenseman for one game the year prior. So he has technically one regular season game and one Stanley Cup as a player to his name. 99:26 But anyway, Doug McKay's at the top. 99:29 As for the flip side of that... By the way, I had to look this up because... 99:35 Doug McKay won a Stanley Cup around 1950, and he was from Hamilton. 99:43 And there was a Dave McKay, of course, a former Major League Baseball player who was an original Blue Jay and a longtime coach, but he's from Vancouver, but he was born in 1950. So I wanted to see if there was any chance, like maybe father and son, but I'm not seeing anything here. 100:03 All right. Now, do you have a crack at the player who would have played the most games in history but only had one Stanley Cup to their name? 100:16 I assume it's not Bork. 100:18 He's third on the list. Good guess from Chris. 100:22 That was a really good guess. 100:25 Is it Chara? 100:27 Yes, it is. Wow. 1,680 games played. Wow. Wow. 100:32 And Andruchuk at two. 100:35 Oh, Andruchuk is second. Okay. 100:37 That's a fun one to finish. 100:39 You know what? Ovechkin. 100:44 No, he can't catch. Ooh. 100:46 No, he can't catch him. 100:49 He's four. Yeah, but he's at 1570-something and counting. Yep. And Bouchara's 1680. So he could finish this year second overall, but he can't get to first. 101:04 Right. Right, right, right. Unless they go win the cup on his way out. 101:08 Then he'd have two. 101:10 That's right. 101:11 Chris, thank you for that. 101:13 That's great. 101:14 Love the follow-up trivia questions, building off the previous episode. All right. That was a long one, but a good one. If you want to send in your own submission, please feel free to do so at 32thoughts at sportsnet.ca or you can drop us a voicemail at 1-833-311-3232. We'll take one final break, say our goodbyes and another Canadian track to play us out. 32 Thoughts, the podcast. It returns after this. 101:57 All right, that's going to do it for this edition of 32. Thank you so much for listening. Another busy night of action in the NHL tonight. Ten games in total. We should flag a couple of them for you. Calgary and Colorado, for viewers in the Flames region, can see that at 7 Mountain Time on Sportsnet West. And those out in the Pacific region can watch the Vancouver Canucks begin their six-game road trip tonight in Carolina at 4 Pacific Time on Sportsnet Pacific. Dom Schimatti, of course, in the Radio crew will have the call as well at 104.9 KISS FM if you're unable to see it on your television set. 102:33 Taking us out today, a track from Kiwi Jr., who are four diehard Montreal Canadiens fans marooned in the city of Toronto. They've released four critically acclaimed albums and worked with well-known record labels, Sub Pop, Mint, and K Records. Their most recent album, Blowing Up, was released in August this year and was called one of the best albums of the summer by Bandcamp.com. They play Toronto this Friday at Longboat Hall. Tickets and more information available at KiwiJr.com. 103:07 And thank you to Kiwi Jr. for your loyal listenership to the pod. Hope your Canadians have a great season ahead of them yet. Here they are, Kiwi Jr. and blowing up on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. 103:20 We are legends of We say good morning We only say good night It's good to see you again Our tiny little satellite When detectives get here on Monday morning They're gonna have run out of warnings And it's our fingerprints at the same Oh synchronous rotation It's simple math, but it cools down at night So I hope you brought a sweatshirt When the boss is back on Monday morning Settle in, boys, party's over Just hit the lights when you leave